Legal Identity and Housing, Land and Property Rights of Syrian Refugees from a Durable Solutions Perspective Challenges and Opportunities Annex 1 Laws on legal identity Civil and Personal Status laws 138 Syria • Civil Status Law, Law 13/2021 and its amendments 139 • Personal Status Law, Law 59/1953 and its amendments Iraq • Birth and Death Registration Law, Law 148/1971 141 • Personal Status Law, Law 188/1959 and its amendments in Iraq and KRI • Minors’ Care Law No. 78 of 1980 Chapter II, arts. 85 - 98. • Iraqi Civil Code No. 40 of 1951. Arts 43 /1 and 36/ 1 and 2. Jordan • Civil Status Law, Law 9/2001 and its amendments 143 • Personal Status Law, Law 15/2019 Lebanon • Law on Personal Status Registration (7 December 1951) and its amendments • Personal Status Laws: in Lebanon, there are eighteen recognized religious groups (i.e. twelve Christian, four Muslim, the Druze, and the Jewish community); each is governed by its own (codified and 145 uncodified) religious law. 140 142 144 Annex 2 Methodology Information for this report was gathered through a combination of a desk review of existing literature and the NRC ICLA programmes’ experience with these issues, complemented by qualitative and quantitative (for Iraq only) research. The report builds on previous UNHCR and NRC research on civil documentation issues in Syria and host countries, in particular on joint UNHCR/NRC regional research carried out during 2020 in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq which focused on selected civil documentation and HLP issues. For this regional effort, research was conducted throughout Jordan, Lebanon and the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI) between May and November 2020. The qualitative fieldwork included 34 focus group discussions (FGD) with male and female refugee community members and 170 key stakeholder interviews (KII) with more than 200 duty bearers and other stakeholders.146 Examples of relevant duty-bearers and other stakeholders included, inter alia, UNHCR protection staff, UNHCR MENA staff, other UN agencies staff (i.e. OHCHR, UN-Habitat, IOM and UNDP), lawyers (Sharia law and civil/criminal law), mukhtars and community members, civil registry staff and urban planners. Enumerators recorded data generated during the KII and FGD on detailed data collection sheets used for the analysis. FGDs were limited due to COVID-19 restrictions that applied in all the countries to various degrees during the research period. In addition, NRC collected a number of case studies to gain an in-depth understanding of the issues and how they affect refugees. All names of individuals have been withheld to respect respondents’ privacy. Where this study refers to information collected during the research, it is important to understand that this is how the speaker perceived the situation, and it is, therefore possible that there were conflicting accounts from different people. The research team relied on the triangulation of all the findings across multiple data sources, in particular the comparison of the qualitative findings with ICLA programmes’ experiences as well as cross-checking the data with previous assessments and research carried out by NRC in Syria and host countries. 138 The Syrian Civil Status Law was promulgated on 1 March 2021 as Law No. 13. 139 The Syrian Personal Status Law was promulgated on 17 September 1953 as Law No. 59, and amended in 1975, 2000, 2003, 2010 and 2019. 140 The Iraqi Birth and Death Registration Law was promulgated on 23 November 1971 as Law No. 148, and amended by Law 110/1982. 141 The Iraqi Personal Status Law was promulgated on 30 December 1959 as Law 188, and amended several times including by Law 11/1963 and Law 21/1978, Law of implementing Personal Status Law No. 15 of 2008 in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Law No. 177 of 1983, amended, on the right of a divorced wife to housing, Law No. 78 of 1931 on Personal Status for Foreigners, as amended. In Iraq, there are 17 officially recognised non-Islamic religious communities, each of which (theoretically) has its own personal status law (Harith Al-Dabbagh (2019), ‘Iraq’ in: N. Yassari et al. (eds.), Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children. Towards a Social Definition of the Family in Muslim Jurisdictions, The Hague: Asser Press & Springer, 103-13, at 107 n. 16). 142 143 144 145 146 Jordan’s Civil Status Law was promulgated on 18 March 2001; amended in 2011 and 2015. Jordan’s Personal Status Law (applicable to Muslims) was promulgated on 2 June 2019. Christians in Jordan are governed by their own personal status laws. The Lebanese Law on Personal Status Registration was promulgated on 7 December 1951, and amended several times in 1956, in 1964 by Law 15738/1964, in 1971 by Law 70/1971, in 1993 by Law 203/1993, and in 1997 by Law 665/1997. Substantive Muslim, including Sunni and Shiʻa, personal status law remains largely uncodified, whereas all Muslims follow one procedural law concerning matters of personal status. In some KII, more than one informant participated in the interview. 24